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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Former "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi told "The View" co-hosts Thursday that her new cookbook was created as her response to the Trump administration's immigration policies. Lakshmi said her cookbook, "Padma’s All American: Tales, Travels, and Recipes from Taste the Nation and Beyond," was her "rebuttal" to former White House deputy chief of staff Steve Bannon, current White House advisor Stephen Miller, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and "all the negativity" she alleged came from President Donald Trump's administration. "It's my rebuttal to Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and ICE and all the negativity," the celebrity chef said. Co-host Sunny Hostin chimed in with "yes" and "correct" as the studio audience applauded. "Because, I mean, I really believe that immigrants are our treasure and our strength, and they’re what make this country what it is," Lakshmi added. "Through food, making it delicious, through music, through health, through science, through sports, through everything. I mean, what would baseball be without Latinos?" she said, referencing an interview the hosts had with former MLB player Alex Rodriguez earlier in the show. FORMER BRAVO STAR SAYS TRUMP VOTERS NEED TO BE BANNED FROM MEXICAN RESTAURANTS IN PROFANE RANT Lakshmi hosted "Taste the Nation," a show that followed food culture from immigrant communities across the U.S. She said in an Instagram post in April that the cookbook was a way for the show to live on, as it would not be returning for another season. On "The View," she described the book as a "microcosm" of the world's flavors. "I wanted to give everybody a balance and a nice cross-section of what American food is and all the things in the book are being eaten by everyday Americans across this land and when you travel road by road, community by community, you really taste how diverse and delicious the food is because it’s a microcosm of the world’s flavors. All these immigrants over generations have brought these flavors here and made them American. And I think that’s what we celebrate," Lakshmi said. Co-host Joy Behar added, "What would we do without immigrants? I'd like to know." The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. KIM KARDASHIAN CONDEMNS TRUMP ICE RAIDS TARGETING PEOPLE WHO 'BUILD OUR COUNTRY' Lakshmi also spoke to Time magazine on Nov. 3 about the book as well. "I hope that the book will be a positive way to counteract all the hate," she said during the interview, adding that she wanted it to help bridge the "divide between Americans of all types." Lakshmi is also an artist ambassador for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The co-hosts of "The View" have been very critical of Trump's immigration policies. Co-host Sunny Hostin said in July that there was a "reckoning" coming for masked ICE agents. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
